The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus) (7 page)

He had to get out of here and warn his friend and mentor. Which meant he had to send that letter, with or without the glass.

“My predecessor must have used a glass and kept it hidden from you,” Robb said. He forced himself to stand tall and straight, adamant that his glass be returned immediately.

“If I give this tool to you to throw this spell, will you return it to my keeping until next time you need it?” Lokeen asked, eyeing him through squinted eyes, his face a mask of worried furrows.

“I give you my word.”

Lokeen snapped his fingers. A third guard appeared in the doorway. “Here is the key to the treasury. Fetch the glass Mage Robb needs. You will find it next to his staff on the long table near the back corner. Mind you, if you touch anything else, let alone spirit it away, I will know and have you punished.”

The guard blanched, nodded agreement, and reluctantly took the proffered key from Lokeen’s hand.

Stargods!
What kind of punishment awaited miscreants in this benighted castle?

M
ARIA ORDERED THE preparations the mage wanted from the base of the turret stairs. Not a single man among Lokeen’s many soldiers and guards offered so much as an assisting arm so that she could climb and oversee the proceedings in the presence of the magician.

She’d hidden her pain too well.

Or perhaps, politeness was not her brother-in-law’s strong suit. Lokeen considered manners and courtesy an affectation of the weak.

Her mind took her back twenty-five years. Yolanda had just inherited the crown of Amazonia from their mother. Tall, graceful, beautiful, with thick blonde hair, and barely twenty, the new queen had glided through her ornate coronation and won the hearts of her people. From a distance.

Maria and her deformities had been banished from the ceremonies, even though she’d organized most of them.

In the weeks afterward, Yolanda entertained many suitors. Maria did her best to keep the most unsuitable away, especially Lokeen, who presented a smile to the young and naïve queen and a sneer of displeasure toward everyone else. But Yolanda fell in love with the man’s smile, his handsomeness, and his thoughtful manners. She began depending upon his advice and good opinion long before the actual wedding.

There was the day when Maria penned letters for her sister.

“Say something nice about the ambassador’s wife and daughters. You know what to say,” Yolanda said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Of course. We greatly enjoyed taking a cup of chilled wine in the garden with . . .” she spoke the words as she wrote.

“Forget that!” Lokeen roared from the doorway. “He’s only an ambassador from a minor city-state, not even a neighbor. Just order him to do what you want. Flattery weakens your position.” He turned his attention to the woman, his betrothed, and changed his expression from angry disapproval to ingratiating charm. “You look lovely, my dear, as always. But that pale pink is not the best color for your gown. You need stronger and bolder colors to reflect your position as queen of the strongest and largest of the city-states.”

“Excuse me, sir.” Maria put down her quill pen and rose from her stool. “You are not yet the queen’s consort. It is not your place to criticize her dress. She wears soft colors as a reflection of her virginal status . . .”

“Enough!” he shouted, emphasizing his words with a vigorous backhand across Maria’s face.

She lost her balance, precarious at best, stumbled over her stool, wrenched her knee and landed heavily on the stone floor. Her twisted body sent lances of pain in all directions. She couldn’t move. Her breathing sounded ragged to her own ears.

“Get up and fetch the queen a better gown,” Lokeen ordered.

“Majesty,” Maria pleaded to her sister, holding up a hand, needing assistance to get to her feet.

Yolanda laughed.

Ever afterward, Maria’s hip and knee protested while climbing stairs.

Even then Lokeen had feared showing any sign of weakness, lest it give his enemies a point of leverage to remove him from his purloined throne.

A throne he should have relinquished to the nearest eligible female relative of his deceased wife and whichever male
she
chose as a consort.

Maria was not eligible because of her deformities. Family and courtiers alike had beaten that concept into her from the day she was born. She did not want the responsibility or power. That belonged to stronger individuals; stronger in both mind and body.

At last the sergeant of the guard, Young Frederico—his father, Senior Frederico had held the position before him—emerged from the cellar door that led to the royal treasury (a different wing with a separate entrance from the dungeons). He cradled in both hands an object covered in costly blue silk, and stepped gingerly as if afraid of tripping and breaking the precious and fragile artifact.

Maria recognized the cloth. The previous mage had taken it from the current mage when he arrived along with the staff. Then Sir demanded that Maria open the treasury—she had one of the two keys, Lokeen had stolen the other from his wife, the other rightful keeper—and hide the magical tools there. “Two more precious items resting among the ancient religious artifacts as well as the gold and silver to run the kingdom,” he’d said. “But unlike the rest of the treasury, you, Lady Maria, must never, ever, under any circumstances touch either the glass or the staff with a bare hand. It will burn you to the bone.”

The ancient Spearhead of Destiny was like that. No male could touch it unless it was given to him by the woman in charge of it. She hadn’t mentioned the Spearhead to Sir. He didn’t need to know about it. Neither did Lokeen.

“I will take that to the magician,” Maria said firmly to Young Frederico.

He hesitated.

“Would you carry the Spearhead of Destiny into battle against the Krakatrice without me giving it to you with a blessing?”

He held out his cupped hands and bowed his head to her authority and the conclusion that this artifact fell into the same revered class as the Spearhead of Destiny.

She folded the silk more closely around the round treasure—such a wonderful texture in silk; like free-flowing water over a parched hand—and took the precious object from him. Then she looked up the long and winding stair. Practicality won out over awe, and she pocketed the round glass with a gold rim so that she had two free hands to clutch the railing.

Young Frederico must have more intelligence than his underlings, for he stepped up beside her and held out his arm, silently, politely looking off into the distance, not acknowledging her weakness, just accepting it. Just as the mage Robb had done yesterday. Had Frederico witnessed the mage’s behavior and mimicked it?

“How fares your sister, Frella?” Maria asked.

“Well enough,” he replied flatly.

“Only ‘well enough’? I’d hoped for better for her.”

“She works at the stables outside the city walls. She’s happy working with steeds day and night. But they aren’t of the quality in the royal stables,” he said, almost as if reluctant to speak of his sister out loud.

“Please send her my greetings and let her know I am pleased so many of the women warriors have found employment in the city since . . . the king dismissed them from palace duties.”

“I’m certain she will appreciate your concern.” He ducked his head and allowed a tiny smile to tip the corners of his mouth upward.

With his arm and the railing balancing her steps, and moving slowly, with dignity, as one should in a royal procession, she mounted the stairs without stopping for breath or to ease her pain. Frederico held open the door to the turret cell with deference. Someone had taught him some manners after all.

Maria liked this new order—a renewed order of respect for her. Something she hadn’t seen since her sister, the queen, had danced through life happy and healthy. Before the birth of her first son which had nearly killed her. The second son had made her an invalid.

She found Lokeen pacing the circular confines of the room. Robb sat on a high stool before the window that overlooked the harbor and the ocean beyond, opposite the courtyard that looked only upon the dungeon cells where Lokeen kept his pet Krakatrice, eyes closed, breathing deeply, and conserving his strength for the work to come.

He’d eaten well, bathed, and shaved. A very handsome man had emerged from the layers of grime and beard. Maria’s heart beat a little faster.

She tamped down on her longing and cleared her head. She needed to observe the spell closely, learn how it was done, so that perhaps she could perform it herself in the future. Surely, if Coronnan had so many magicians that they filled a University with practitioners, then the myth that only people born with a special talent could work magic was just a myth. What people needed was not talent but training.

“We have brought you a bowl of clear water, an oil candle, a flight feather from a sea bird that we left living, a gold coin from Coronnan, and your glass,” she announced as she placed the silk-enshrouded glass on the table along with the other symbolic materials.

Robb exhaled deeply and nodded. But he did not move from his place.

“Get to it, man!” Lokeen shouted.

Robb took another deep breath, held it on a long count and exhaled it again before turning to face his captor. A strange glaze covered his eyes as if he looked far away beyond the limits of the walls, further than the ocean horizon, and deep within himself at the same time.

“I am ready.” His voice echoed deeply, as if it came from another body, one that was not here. Up in the skies perhaps. Or deep on the ocean bottom.

She backed up, awed and frightened by this alien man. Her hands instinctively clutched the goddess pendant beneath her clothes. She thought she had gotten to know Robb a bit, thought they were becoming friends. But this . . . this was not the Robb she expected.

This man controlled vast powers she could not fathom.

Robb glided off his stool, graceful, barely grounded against the wide wooden planks of the floor. He stood at the table and began rearranging his assembled tools without looking at them. Then he waited, expectantly.

Young Frederico rushed to shove the stool behind the mage. Robb sat, again without looking, as if he knew precisely where everything in the room should be.

A snap of his fingers produced a tiny flamelet on his left pointing finger. He dropped his hand toward the candle, and the ember jumped to the wick where it flared high and eager to burn the waiting oil-soaked linen braid. His right hand did not fumble as he brought the tip of the feather to the flame. It scorched only, sending a column of smoke outward, without pattern or direction. The gold coin touched the smoldering feather, and the smoke organized itself into a circle. When Robb gently placed the coin and the feather into the bowl of water, the smoke spiraled downward, following them, only to be trapped by the glass as he floated it in the water atop them all.

Maria watched every move with her jaw hanging open. How? How could he do this? How many years had he studied just to bring flame out of nothing? The symbolism she understood. The means she could not, not without much more close observation.

She barely noticed as he passed the sealed letter through the flame without burning and dropped it atop the glass with the written destination facing downward.

“Seek, seek the one whose face appears on the coin. Fly free and swift, straight as I send you,” he murmured, eyes finally focusing on the letter.

Smoke and flame flared up from the bowl, engulfing the letter in a tight twist of gold and green, then flew out the window, straight across the harbor toward the ocean. Maria watched it as it grew smaller with distance but did not dissipate in the constant movement of air over the water.

When she could no longer see it, she looked back toward Robb and the bowl. He slumped in exhaustion across the table. Inside the bowl, the letter was gone.

And so was the glass. Its silk protection lay neatly folded but empty beside his elbow.

She smiled secretly, finally releasing her grip on her talisman. Here was a man she could admire as a leader. If she could find a way, she’d make him king of Amazonia, consort to one of her many female cousins, and cheerfully watch Lokeen die, eaten by his own Krakatrice.

Lily waded across the River Dubh on a string of flat rocks that looked to be placed by the local people for just this purpose. Cool water flowed across her toes, and she wiggled them in delight. A chuckling tune came to mind rounding out the voice of the river. Skeller had sung that song . . . She had to stop thinking about Skeller. He was right. They both needed time to heal from the murder of Samlan and her deep empathic bond with her victim—a bond she couldn’t help sharing with the man she loved. They’d both endured the moment of death as if their own. But they’d lived. And they needed time apart.

But she missed him sorely.

The river continued its joyful path toward the River Coronnan and thus to the sea, heedless of the human suffering along its path.

Should she take the time to wash up a bit before striding into a strange village? A quick inspection showed her hands no dirtier than usual, and she’d splashed her face with water upon rising. Bare feet were always dirty. Her boots hung from her pack, barely used. They blocked her connection to the land. Kardia Hodos, her home. A living, breathing world that nurtured humans and dragons and everything in between. One big circle of life that she couldn’t join when she wore shoes.

(Krystaal here. Are you looking for excuses to delay?)
a female dragon whispered into the back of her mind.

“Lily here,” she replied with proper dragon protocol. “And no I’m not looking for excuses. I just want to present myself as friendly and helpful, not ragged and desperate. These people have probably seen too many ragged and desperate people fleeing the devastation of the flood.”

(
You are not dirty. Go.)

An emptiness at the base of Lily’s skull where the dragon’s presence had been almost sent her toppling off the ford. Dragons were like that, intruding with unwanted wisdom one second and then completely gone within a heartbeat.